The most important thing about riding your Ripstik is having fun. If you did not have fun on your board you would not tell your friends about it and the Ripstik would go out of business. The second most important thing about riding is safety. The only thing riding safe does for you on the Ripstik is keeps you riding. If you were to fall off your Ripstik and hit your head without a helmet the damage could be so great that you may not be able to ride for a long time. If you have a helmet on you may have a head ache but you are back riding your board, if not the same day, the very next day.

The extreme sport movement has set a good standard showing every professional athlete at say a popular event like the X-Games wearing helmets. Helmets are not nerdy or dumb to wear, it is smart. Just look at the pros, they all wear one and I bet each one of them have their own stories of the time they hit their head, but thankfully had a helmet on. How much more damage would have been done without a helmet. Helmets come in all sorts of designs and shapes and sizes. Find one that fits you right and looks good. Put it on and ride smart.

Safety involves more then just helmets though. Riding safe is just as important. Most of the time there is someone better then you that have more difficult and more dangerous tricks. Chances are they have also been riding longer too. Riding safe means not trying something so far out of your skill level that you may get hurt. Do not jump right to the most difficult trick on your first day. Work your way up. Start with tricks that are easier and build upon all the tricks you already know. You will eventually be able to do the difficult tricks, but if you hurt yourself trying them when you should not be you may never get to try them.

There are also other pads that you can wear such as elbow pads, knee pads and wrist pads. These pads are not as important as a helmet but can often give you the confidence to learn something new. It can never hurt to throw all the pads on if you are trying to learn a difficult trick. You will minimize your injury if you fall so you can jump back up and try it again. Knee pads are usually always a good idea because if you need to bail off a trick then a safe place to fall is usually onto your knees with pads on. This is especially true if you are trying to ride on ramps. Wearing these pads can also give you confidence to take your riding to the next level.

Put on your helmet and pads, ride safe and ride confident. We ride the Ripstik because it is a blast; we put on the pads and helmet to minimize injury so we can continue to ride. Chances are you are going to fall and get hurt. If you have pads on you jump back up, if you are riding unsafe you may not get up off the pavement and onto your board for a long time. Ride safe, ride smart, but most importantly have fun.

Haro BMX Bikes are a one of the best known brands in the world. This is because Haro Brand is one of the first BMX Brands to be well known since the sport started. This means that anyone that was interested in BMX as a hobby or a full time career would instantly look towards Haro as one of the best options.

The Haro Bikes include a number of different brackets of quality. The Haro BMX Bikes suitability ranges all the way from beginner to bikes that professionals will ride in X Games and Dew Tour. Not only does the Haro sell completes (complete bikes ready to ride), they also sell custom bmx parts such as frames, pedals, brakes, rims and more.

The different categories for Haro BMX Bikes are as follows:
Forum Series
X Series
ZX Series
F series
Z series
Pro Amature
Junior-mini
Cruisers

The reason for having such a large range of bikes is to allow all riders of any skill level to have a suitable bike for themselves to ride confidently, in their own specific price range. Generally speaking, the more the bike costs, the better it is with respects to quality, strength and weight. The aesthetic looks of all of the bikes are excellent and it means even if your purchasing a bike that isn’t the best quality, you can still look good riding it.

The Haro bike frames come in three categories.
Convert
Team Issue
Race lite

Clearly each category has its own strengths and weaknesses. The Convert frames are for the average rider who is looking to ride in a large variety of ways. The team issue frames are the ones the riders of the Haro BMX Team ride. These are custom made to their liking and are generally of an extremely high quality.

Hopefully this has given you an insight into Haro BMX Bikes, and from here you can make an educated choice as to which bike would be best for you.

Career as a Skateboarder

Is it really possible to turn your talent of flawlessly going over a loop ramp into a fruitful career? If you ask Steve Caballero, Bob Burnquist, and Bucky Lasek, they’ll give you a simple answer. It’s a resounding yes. For many years, these professional skateboarders have been entertaining people in skateboarding exhibitions and contests.

How much money can you earn from skateboarding?

Though they have not disclosed how much money they make in a year, famous skateboarders like Burnquist and Caballero can make approximately $1 million every month. But on the average, most professional skateboarders earn at least $1,000 every month. This may be a pretty paltry sum compared to the $1 million mark, but if you want to reach this amount, start young and start now.

How to Earn from Skateboarding

So here’s the 64 million dollar question: how do you earn from skateboarding? Here are the most common ways.

1. Competitions

Just like any sport, skateboarding is filled with several contests every year. These contests can be a minor or major one, and they can be held in different countries. From Europe to South America, there is always a skateboarding competition that you can join in. One of the major contests is the X Games. It is sponsored by ESPN, and it comes once in a year.

2. Sponsorship

Aside from competitions, you can earn from sponsorships. From free skate clothing to better skateboards or even cash, you will be sponsored by a brand the moment you get famous. Some of these sponsors demand exclusivity, while others are willing to share your name with other brands. You may also be required to play at shows once in a while depending on your contract.

3. Endorsements

Famous professional skateboarders have been endorsing sports brands, skate clothing, skate shop, and brands of skateboards. This will be where the bulk of the money comes from. If your skateboarding skills are known around the world, there’s more money and more opportunities to be had.

4. Exhibitions

As previously mentioned, many sponsors would ask you to play or put on a show every once in a while. But if you’re an independent skateboarder, you can still participate in these exhibitions if a major network or a show organizer hires your services.

Now What?

Now that you know and fully understand how to carve out a career from skateboarding, the first thing to do is to scout for a manager. If you’re confident in your skills, you won’t have difficulty convincing a manager to take you in.

Why should you hire a manager?

For one, a manager knows how to make you famous. He has connections, and you will easily be booked in a show or get a sponsor if you work alongside a well-connected manager. Normally, a manager gets a cut from your earnings, but it is a small price to pay considering the rewards you will possibly have. Also, if you have a manager, you will focus more on honing your skateboarding skills.

Whether it’s the speed of going downhill, hitting the ultimate flip spin, the snow, or just trying to avoid falling over and staying on your board, snowboarding has become an extremely popular winter sport. It’s a fun way to spend any snow day off from school.

Snowboarding has become more and more popular, especially among those living in states where it actually does snow (although people from the southern states also follow the sport), mainly because of the coverage it has been getting on TV.

From the Winter Olympics to the X Games, individuals who watch their favorite snowboarder hit a move, are looking to mimic it the next day.

Snowboarding is a fun sport to participate in because you can do it by yourself, or you can go out with a group of friends, or even complete strangers at a ski resort, and still have a good time.

The sport is also fairly appealing to all skill levels, because it is pretty easy to learn with the right training and instruction. It is the kind of sport that the worst athlete, or the best athlete, can succeed in and perform well, if they put in a little bit of time and work. It is a thrill going downhill at such high speeds, and the fact that you are doing it on one board, and are able to manipulate speed and direction with just the turn of your feet, is a great thrill for anyone who has participated in snowboarding.

It can even be fun for those who are constantly falling, and just learning the sport. Once they finally make it downhill, without a fall, it only gets better each time they hit the slopes. Many individuals also love the sport because it is an alternative to skiing. You can get the same speeds racing downhill, on one board, rather than two skis. It is something different and unique, therefore it draws all kinds of individuals. It’s also a great way to get a workout in; if you don’t like going to the gym, snowboarding is an extremely fun way to get that workout, and not have to hit the gym for an hour a day; you can hit the slopes, and do something you have fun with instead.

No matter what the reason is that you love snowboarding, one of the major reasons it is so fun and popular, is that because anyone can learn how to properly snowboard; with a little practice and effort, it is possible for any individual to master it.

Have you ever gone to a skate park and noticed that the skateboard riders get to drop-in to the various ramps and jumps which have been designed into the skate park? These drop-ins allow the rider to gain speed and inertia to do all of their tricks. Often, there are BMX riders who also like to go to the skate parks and use the drop-ins for their own tricks. Perhaps you've seen the X-Games sponsored by Red Bull, and watched the BMX riders compete for who can do the best tricks. Many of them risk life and limit for the notoriety and for prize dollars.

If you go onto YouTube you will see there are mountain bike competitions for downhill, and for rather exotic trails, often modified with jumps and other features. It seems to me that having a drop-in strategy to allow these mountain bikes to get up to speed makes a lot of sense. It also means that smaller hills can serve the same purpose as larger mountains because the entry speed would be greatly increased. Now then, what I have in mind is a new concept, and I call it a BikeDrome. Why did I pick this name? Well because in ancient times there were Seadromes for warships, and at the beginning of the aviation era there were Airdromes, which today would be called simply; airports.

I guess we could call it a BikePort, but that sounds like a place to plug in your electric bike or some added feature on the bike to plug in your iPhone. It's not that either of those ideas are a bad concept, we need more of those too, sometimes even a WiFi mountain bike to text message, watch videos, and get your emails. Never mindless, at some point it's time to stop doing all of the personal tech and start riding your bike not only to stay in shape, but also to show what you're made out of, to see if you can go the distance, and to see if you have the balls it takes to do the tricks without smoking out.

A BikeDrome would be a drop-in system which hooks on your back tire and backs you back up near near vertical wall you put your feet on the side in little trays which are slides. Once you are towed up to the top, you can press a release button and you slide down onto the trail or onto a ramp with a burst of speed. This would be the perfect system to get maximum speed before you start. That is if you are tough enough to handle it. Please consider all this and think on it.

As of right now, being a great skateboarder will not help with your child’s college resume. And chances are the soccer or baseball coach will frown upon your child skateboarding. It’s not an Olympic sport yet, but there is a powerful group of people trying to get it into the 2010 or 2016 Games. That will go a long way to giving it its rightful place as a real sport but, truth is, many skateboarders want to keep it out of the Olympics. The skateboard culture is about freedom and the Olympics come with rules and regulation. In an interview for “Time Magazine,” Tony Hawk said, “At this point, the Olympics needs skateboarding more than skateboarding needs the Olympics. They desperately need a cool factor and younger viewers. Skateboarding has all the makings of an Olympic sport and has more participants than many of them.” Yes, skateboarding is a sport.

But whether skateboarding is brought into the Olympic Games or not, there is no doubt that it is one of the toughest sports to master. Physically it demands core and leg strength, amazing balance and agility and coordination. Remember a skater just rides on top of the deck, not strapped onto the board. And all the tricks require the skater to land back on the board. It’s very complex with myriad variations of moves, and most of them intentional. The vocabulary is funny, silly and impossible to learn unless you really really pay attention.

Skateboarding as a spectator sport has really ramped up the viewership of the X Games. The summer X games feature six disciplines of skateboarding competitions: Big Air, Women Street, Men Street, Men Vert and Women Vert. Competing at this level takes years of training and practice. so think about Ryan Sheckler being 13 when he won a gold medal in street skating. But your child will start out slowly and build leg strength and balance with stronger core muscles. The great thing is that kids have fun right from the start and it’s one of the few sports you can do without a ton of equipment or having to gather a team. A skater can skate for 10 minutes in the driveway (or kitchen!) or skate for hours at the park. And even though its tough to learn, it’s almost always fun.

We’re getting close to the return of the Dew Tour, and I can’t wait! June 25th needs to hurry up and get here so I can see all the crazy tricks I haven’t even imagined yet! The tour starts in Boston and should give us some of the best skateboarding, BMX riding and FMX the world has ever seen. The Dew Tour, like the X Games, is known for progressing the disciplines of skateboarding, BMX, and FMX. The tour is 5 stops and is a season long contest. You can’t win one contest and get the cup, you have to be consistent through all 5 stops to have a chance at the crown. That being said, here are the 5 best skateboarding vert tricks ever thrown in a contest, according to me that is.

Starting at #5 are all the crazy kick flips that have been put down lately. I never thought the kick flip would be a normal part of a vert routine, but all the finalists at last year’s X Games had at least 2 flip tricks in their runs. From a regular kick flip to Danny Mayer’s kick flip Mc Twist, they are here to stay in vert. The complexity of flipping the board, catching it, and placing back under your feet is obvious upon first viewing. Kick flips add a great amount of difficulty and excitement to any run.

On to #4, Shaun White’s 540 body varial, which he calls the Armadillo. The first time I saw this trick I was in total disbelief that he could rotate his body and board in that manner! While doing a 540, he grabs the board with his back hand in front of his front foot and spins the board around and tucks it back under his feet with his hand on the back of the board under his back foot. I had to watch the video of this trick several times to comprehend everything that is happening. I have heard rumor that Shaun is working on adding a kick flip to this trick and hope it is true.

Coming in at #3 is Danny Mayer’s kick flip Mc Twist. When Danny gets into this trick it looks like he is not going to catch the flipping board as he rolls into the 540. He has to rotate the board when he kicks the flip so he’s actually doing a kick flip 180 so the board keeps up with the rotation of his body. This trick is so difficult that it’s won a few best trick contests for Mr. Mayer. Now, on to the heavy hitters!

At #2 are all the 720s that have been landed. The video doesn’t show all the crazy variations the riders are doing nowadays, but you get the point. PLG and Andy Macdonald perform different versions of the 720 in their regular vert routines. It wasn’t too long ago when a 720 could win a best trick contest by itself and now it’s become a staple!

#1 should be no surprise to anyone that loves vert: the big 900. Tony Hawk started it all, but now at least 4 people have landed this huge trick in competition. It’s hard to imagine that Tony was that far ahead of everyone else, but he was.

That’s the list of the best vert tricks if you ask me, but now I am asking you. What do you think are the best tricks ever thrown on a vert ramp?

Major League Gaming (MLG) is the home of professional gaming and it has been since 2002. Today we are in 2015, professional gaming has been around for 13 years and has grown tremendously since it started. The atmosphere, locations, games/consoles, and prizes have all changed in these past 13 years.

When Major League Gaming first started most people thought of it as a joke more than anything. People thought, professional gaming really? Yes really professional gaming was a thing then. It didn’t get a lot of attention from outsiders and or non-gamers, but that would change. The atmosphere at the beginning of MLG was nothing spectacular, the only emotional feeling you could get would be from the players, and the tiny amount of spectators. It was equivalent to watching a sports game with a tiny amount of viewers. Over the time period the atmosphere grew to a whole new level; over time of course. Today the atmosphere is crazy. You can feel the intensity as a viewer, you can see the hype from the players, and there are actual crowds of people watching. Not only are they watching but they are supporting their team, just like a sporting event. Fans make signs, and cheer for their favorite teams and players. Looking into the future, this will only continue to grow. There will be more fans as time goes on and that means more of an atmosphere and excitement. Also, as time goes on new players will come into the scene and add more excitement to the atmosphere. I guess we will see what happens.

At the beginning of MLG tournaments were held in banquet halls. The events were held in these locations for a while. I do not know when MLG had gotten their arena but currently there is an MLG arena in Columbus, Ohio. This is where all the MLG events are held. In the past there were no events in other countries or states. Now there are events across the states and in other countries, during the summer time there was an event in Texas called the X-Games just like the athletic X-Games, but this is for games. The winner got gold medals just like in the other X-Games. Also there are tournaments called G-Finity and UMG. Over this past summer there were 3 events in 3 different European countries. For the future I can see this having some growth. I believe there could be multiple arenas for MLG events and there could be more countries for tournaments. Also, when events were held in the banquet halls players had the monitors and systems lined up on long tables. As time went on and as events were held in other places like the arena, booths were made. Now players are playing in sound proof booths, with a divider next to other booth separating them. There is also a big overheard above the booths for people to watch the game. On front of the booths are the teams logo and name. I think that this will remain the same in the future with minimal changes.

The games have changed over the years as well. When MLG started there games played on the older versions of PlayStation, Xbox, and even Nintendo systems. There were games such as Super Smash Bros. Melee, Soul Caliber, Call of Duty, and Halo. As time went on to more modern consoles newer games were added and so were computers. Currently there are the modern consoles and computers being used in professional gaming. Some of the games are Call of Duty, Halo, Smite, and League of Legends. This will continue in the future as well. The new versions of games will be played on the new consoles when they come out.

As time went on so did the amount of prize money. When Major League Gaming started the prize money was only in the hundreds. That prize money is divided among the number of players per team. So if the prize was $100, each player only got $25, so not much money at all, it was something but nothing special. As time went on the prize pool increased to the smaller thousands and continued to grow. Now prize pools are in the higher thousands, hundreds of thousands and even some are worth a million dollars. Now if the prize pool is $500,000 the first place team does not get all that money. That $500,000 is disbursed among the top eight teams or so and then broken up based on the number of players.

In conclusion professional gaming has come a long way, going from nothing worth of recognition to where it is today, It is a very successful and entertaining scene. It has had a lot of success and I expect this will only continue to grow and be more popular as time goes on.

Skateboarding is one of the most popular sports in X games. The X games are held annually and focus on extreme action sports. Skateboarding has become a rage amongst the youngsters. The speed, creativity, and the skills required to do skateboard tricks make it an interesting as well as challenging sport. This game is all about thrill, passion, and speed. Here are a few reasons for the popularity of this exciting sport.

o Health Benefits: Like all other sports and games skateboarding too has numerous health benefits. The sedentary lifestyle nowadays has caused an increase in obesity and other health related diseases amongst the youngsters. Skateboarding helps in increasing fitness levels while helping the skaters in losing excess weight and getting in shape. It improves the physical and cardiovascular health of the skaters. So, if you are looking forward to indulge in some activity which is entertaining as well as promotes fitness, then skateboarding is perfect for you.

o Great way to make friends: Skateboarding is also a great way to make new friends and meet like minded people. Once you take up skateboarding, you will surely meet other skaters and it will not only increase your friend circle but you will also get to learn new tips and tricks pertaining to the sport. You can also train with a skateboarding partner which will help you in enhancing your performance and motivation levels.

o Can be taken professionally: Skateboarding is no longer only a recreational activity, it has been taken up professionally by many skateboarding enthusiasts. For becoming a professional skateboarder, you will need to practice regularly and have a proper training schedule. You can also learn the tricks of the trade by learning from a trainer. A trainer can help you in learning the basics of skateboarding which is essential before you try to attempt any difficult tricks. Many professional skaters train youngsters to help them in becoming professional skateboarders.

o Economical Sport: Skateboarding is relatively inexpensive compared to most other sports. The only thing you need to invest in before taking up this thrilling sport is a skateboard. Skateboards are easily available at affordable prices and as a beginner you need not invest in an expensive skateboard. You also do not require buying too many accessories. Just buy a basic protective gear and a skateboard to start with.

There is nothing that is more extreme then the sport of skateboarding. Skateboarding started out by simply nailing rolling skate wheels to a plank of wood and has since evolved into a worldwide phenomenon and recognized extreme sport. Skateboarding has gone through a lot to get to the point it is at now but that discussion is for a different article. Here I want to talk about why skateboarding is so extreme and so popular. Skateboarding takes a kind of athlete that very few sports require. Balance, strength, intuition, guts, skill and a natural ability are just a small sample of what a person needs to become a great skateboarder. The skateboarders of today are quite possibly the most talented athletes in the world. When you compare the difficulty, danger, skill level, variety and competition of the sport it is really not hard to see why. There are also a number of avenues that the sport of skateboarding has been down that solidified it as an extreme sport, avenues like the X Games and the Gravity Games.

When you think of an athlete you generally think of a football, baseball or basketball player. Perhaps you think of a track and field athlete, swimmer or tap dancer (kidding). Before the recent skateboard revolution in the 90’s and today not many people would have lumped skateboarders into the category of athlete; thug, trouble maker, talented or maybe skilled, but not athlete. But now when you compare the types of tricks skateboarders are doing, and the unbelievable things they get their bodies to do when they are 15 feet in the air and then land smooth just to hit another huge air seconds later to the things “typical” athletes do, people are actually starting to say that skateboarders are arguably MORE athletic then a what we know as a “typical” athlete. After watching competitions like the X Games I am not one to argue that point. What professional skateboarders are able to do with a chunk of wood on wheels is uncanny.

Simply the danger and difficulty of skateboarding are enough to steer thousands of hopeful professional skaters away from the scene, but those that press through know what it took to get there. There are not too many other sports that draw comparisons of difficulty to skateboarding. Take this for example you take off going extremely fast launch into the air, while your in the air you flip your body, rotate the board under your feet, catch the board with your hand, put the board back under your feet, land on the board and keep riding… oh and do it all with style. It is pretty amazing what skateboarders are able to do these days and very fun to watch. Luckily the main stream has caught on to this incredible sport and competitions like x games and gravity games now highlight skateboarding as one of their main events. This gets the word out and shows the world that these guys are in the most extreme sport and deserve to be called world class athletes.